Immigration Control Through Intimidation: Deportations The Trump Way

It is not clear the ICE is deporting more people under Trump than it was under Obama. What is changed is who they are deporting and how. In a number highly publicized incidents that are now too numerous to be accidents, the Trump ICE is going after people who have committed no violent crimes, who are part of families well.established in local communities, and doing so with "shock and awe" tactics that spread fear among immigrants of color. The goal seems to be to create such fear that immigrants of color will chose to go home, or will cancel their plans to come to the US.I call this strategy "Immigration Control Through Intimidation." It has pitted neighbor against neighbor, traumatized tens of millions of people and made many others wonder what kind of country they are living in. Any policy whose conscious goal is to create fear in large number of vulnerable people deeply compromises the society which chooses to implement it.